Rise in dropout cases in schools across J&K rings alarm bells
Rattled by the increase in dropout rate in Jammu & Kashmir union territory, the School Education Department under the Talash Scheme has directed all the Chief Education Officers, (CEOs) to constitute a panel of three teachers in every school that would visit to minimum 150 households near by their schools to identify the Out of School Children (OOSC) and bring them back to the respective schools.
Acting on the directions, the CEOs in each district further directed the subordinates to implement the order in letter and spirit, and complete the project within two months.
Earlier, the Director Samagra Shiksha Er. Deep Raj Kanethia launched the Talash App to track OOSCs under which the panel will identify and mainstream out of School Children in J&K.
Meanwhile, official sources said that the Talash Scheme is one of the various steps taken by the UT Government. They further said that the governments in both the UTs of J&K and Ladakh have also modified their formal education system and directed the Jammu & Kashmir State Open School (JKSOS), a subsidiary of the J&K Board of School Education (JKBOSE, to announce direct admission to class 10th for the session 2021-22 for the students of both the UTs through its 38 Government High and Higher Secondary Schools (accredited Institutions) with no upper age limit after 14 years.
They also said that the government got serious after the Union Ministry of Education shared data that 16.7 percent of students have dropout at secondary stage during 2019-20 in J&K. The number of dropouts was higher than the national dropout rate in the secondary stage.
At the primary level–class 1 to 5, dropout rate is 3.9 percent and at the upper primary level–6-8 class, dropout rate is 3.2 percent, as per the Education Ministry data.
The Ministry of Education informed that dropout rates of girl students in the secondary and elementary education levels have jumped to 16.6 and 3.7 percent in J&K UT in the year 2019 to 2020.
Fumigated over the data, Biswajit Kumar Singh, IFS, Principal Secretary to J&K School Education Department had directed the Director School Education Kashmir and Director School Education Jammu to identify the dead wood teachers who are not performing their duties to the level of expectations, causing increase in drop outs, and furnish the list to his office within 15 days for onward transmission to general administration for necessary action.
